why the left is dying

SS109 wrote: Yes, a fiscal libertarian socialist would have a hard time coming up with the money for his programs.

The part that wouldn't make sense to me is how you could have a planned economy (which is pretty much what socialism is all about) if you are also a free-market proponent. I can't even imagine what that would "look like".

LadyJazzer wrote: It's an opportunity to use the words "socialist" and "regressive" in a sentence... Nothing more.

Once again, your ignorance is showing LJ. Socialist Libertarians are a recognized political philosophy. Perhaps you should take opportunities to become enlightened when you don't recognize a term someone else has used before responding. After all, better to be thought a fool than to open your mouth and remove all doubt.

LadyJazzer wrote: But then, I don't consider myself ANY kind of "libertarian"....

Most statists don't believe in liberty.

AspenValley wrote: I looked it up and you are right. Never heard of such a critter.

No worries AV - I'm just happy to know that isn't to whom you were referring with your comment about left libertarians - you had me worried for a minute. I was beginning to wonder if that was the political philosophy you self identified with.

AspenValley wrote: What I was thinking more of were people who had libertarian ideas about social issues, ie, opposed to "blue laws", prohibitions on drug use, "victimless crimes", etc. on the premise that the state should not have authority over other people's moral decisions.

By this do you mean that the state should only have authority over their pocketbook to ensure egalitarianism and to ensure that they contribute their fair share to state charity operations? How do you reconcile that statement with your support of the involuntary mandate contained in ObamaCare? Wouldn't participation in any commerce be endowed with the same sense of liberty evidenced in your statement here?

AspenValley wrote: In other words people whose libertarian ideas went more to the social side than the fiscal side. Although in some sense, the idea of open borders actually goes along with libertarian economic ideas because you can't have truly "free" markets when there are national borders, tariffs, etc.

Nor can you have any nation under an open borders scenario - which is essentially advocating for anarchy, and would be a fairly accurate descriptor for the Socialist Libertarian philosophy.

AspenValley wrote: But I can't say I "get" how a person could be fiscally libertarian and socialist at the same time. Seems like an oxymoron to me.

Basically it comes down to thinking that the only thing you are in ownership of is yourself, all else belongs to the collective whole. The property you inhabit, for instance, is not owned by you, you are simply the steward of it for the length of time that you inhabit the property. You would owe the collective compensation for the benefit you received while acting as the steward of the property that you occupy so that they too would benefit from your use of the land. If you extracted a resource for your personal benefit, you would have to compensate the collective for your consumption of a resource that was owned by everyone.

A more traditional libertarian view of money is that it should have a clear and redeemable value that can't be artificially altered by a government expanding or contracting the money supply. What we have right now is a system whereby the government's spending is wholly without any control and they are essentially levying a hidden inflation tax on the labor and savings of the citizens of the states to pay for their largess through the issuance of new currency that is bottomed on nothing other than their need to have more currency in circulation as a result of their spending.

Does that help explain it?

PrintSmith wrote:

LadyJazzer wrote: It's an opportunity to use the words "socialist" and "regressive" in a sentence... Nothing more.

Once again, your ignorance is showing LJ. Socialist Libertarians are a recognized political philosophy. Perhaps you should take opportunities to become enlightened when you don't recognize a term someone else has used before responding.

I recognize all your "terms"... You use the same ones over and over in different combinations to say the same empty b.s.

PrintSmith wrote: [

AspenValley wrote: What I was thinking more of were people who had libertarian ideas about social issues, ie, opposed to "blue laws", prohibitions on drug use, "victimless crimes", etc. on the premise that the state should not have authority over other people's moral decisions.

By this do you mean that the state should only have authority over their pocketbook to ensure egalitarianism and to ensure that they contribute their fair share to state charity operations? How do you reconcile that statement with your support of the involuntary mandate contained in ObamaCare? Wouldn't participation in any commerce be endowed with the same sense of liberty evidenced in your statement here?

It might very well be in conflict, if one believed in social libertarianism, which I as a matter of fact, don't. I have a hard time getting excited about the idea of telling people they can't smoke pot, but I do believe in other limits on individual behavior, notably abortion. (As I think you well know?)

Basically it comes down to thinking that the only thing you are in ownership of is yourself, all else belongs to the collective whole. The property you inhabit, for instance, is not owned by you, you are simply the steward of it for the length of time that you inhabit the property. You would owe the collective compensation for the benefit you received while acting as the steward of the property that you occupy so that they too would benefit from your use of the land. If you extracted a resource for your personal benefit, you would have to compensate the collective for your consumption of a resource that was owned by everyone.

I see. Well, that might work in a very small group spread over very large resources (Pre-Columbian American Indians, maybe?) but doesn't seem like a very practical way to organize a large, modern economy. Although I do wish our present system made more allowance for the costs of cleaning up messes made by private individuals/corporations.

A more traditional libertarian view of money is that it should have a clear and redeemable value that can't be artificially altered by a government expanding or contracting the money supply. What we have right now is a system whereby the government's spending is wholly without any control and they are essentially levying a hidden inflation tax on the labor and savings of the citizens of the states to pay for their largess through the issuance of new currency that is bottomed on nothing other than their need to have more currency in circulation as a result of their spending.

Ah, yes, the fiat currency hysteria. I am well aware with the pitfalls of such a currency, although I do think it has tended by some self-styled "libertarians" to shade into nutso conspiracy theory. But there are also big problems with currency that is backed by hard assets, primarily the artificial constraint on the size of the money supply when productivity is rising but the supply of gold or silver is not. So far as I can tell, no one has invented a perfect solution to the problem of currency.

LadyJazzer wrote:

PrintSmith wrote:

LadyJazzer wrote: It's an opportunity to use the words "socialist" and "regressive" in a sentence... Nothing more.

Once again, your ignorance is showing LJ. Socialist Libertarians are a recognized political philosophy. Perhaps you should take opportunities to become enlightened when you don't recognize a term someone else has used before responding.

I recognize all your "terms"... You use the same ones over and over in different combinations to say the same empty b.s.

PS, remember LJ is just a cut and paste parrot, she doesn't even monitor opposing views like Fox News or Rush Limbaugh. How could she learn about a political philosophy unless Politico dumbs it down for her?

LadyJazzer wrote: I recognize all your "terms"... You use the same ones over and over in different combinations to say the same empty b.s.

What is empty is the philosophy that a single government, replete with the inherent corruption that is an integral part of it, is the best form of governance out there.

Wow, talk about a strawman.. That last post by SS109 was the definition of strawman.

Hey, I monitor: "News Hounds: We watch FOX so you don't have to"

http://www.newshounds.us/

I know what they say... But since my gag-reflex threshold is pretty low, they save me the trouble.

So Fox News and Rush are busy "educating" their audience about a fringe group (which seems to have gone largely extinct in the early twentieth century anyway) like "socialist libertarians"? To what purpose, I wonder? Also, were they able to produce a living specimen of these dodo birds?

AspenValley wrote:

PrintSmith wrote: A more traditional libertarian view of money is that it should have a clear and redeemable value that can't be artificially altered by a government expanding or contracting the money supply. What we have right now is a system whereby the government's spending is wholly without any control and they are essentially levying a hidden inflation tax on the labor and savings of the citizens of the states to pay for their largess through the issuance of new currency that is bottomed on nothing other than their need to have more currency in circulation as a result of their spending.

Ah, yes, the fiat currency hysteria. I am well aware with the pitfalls of such a currency, although I do think it has tended by some self-styled "libertarians" to shade into nutso conspiracy theory. But there are also big problems with currency that is backed by hard assets, primarily the artificial constraint on the size of the money supply when productivity is rising but the supply of gold or silver is not. So far as I can tell, no one has invented a perfect solution to the problem of currency.

The problems with the latter are much fewer than the problems with the first, as we have all become aware of since abandoning any affiliation of our currency with a specie as a result of DC levying an inflation tax to get the currency to pay for both the "Great Society" and the Vietnam War in 1971. The benefit of having the currency bottomed on a specie is that the value of the currency against the specie can't be hidden or altered as easily as when the currency has no basis at all.